Virginia Woolf: The Impact of Childhood Sexual Abuse on Her Life and Work

Scholarly without suffering from an overuse of lexicon, DeSalvo's study investigates how sexual abuse affected not only the development of Virginia Woolf's life and fiction but also the lives of the other members of her family as well as their internecine tangle of relationships. DeSalvo portrays the Stephen household and reveals how its adult members and doctors treated female members who diverged from societal norms or who behaved, it was then thought, "hysterically"--often, we now know, in response to incest. The book is an important, passionate attack on the still-prevalent notion that Woolf suffered from madness: "her biographers have continued to portray her as mad, rather than having been treated as if she were mad." Instead, Woolf was responding as any adolescent would to childhood trauma, and what should be noted (and celebrated) is her success at survival. "What seems almost a miracle," DeSalvo writes, "is watching Virginia Stephen, at fifteen, in the process of creating herself as a significant, purposeful, dignified human being." The meat of the book is the first part and a chapter entitled, "1897: Virginia Woolf at Fifteen." The three opening chapters present biographical sketches of Laura (the "madwoman in the attic" of Woolf's household) and of Virginia's sisters Stella and Vanessa; the section on the year 1897 shows how Virginia responded to her own experiences. These portraits detail overwhelming evidence for rampant incest, sexual abuse, and emotional abuse; it also describes the treatment accorded to girls who in any way departed from the patriarchal expectations of the middle-class Victorian family household. In addition, DeSalvo discusses how these childhood experiences replicated themselves in the complex web of Woolf's adult relationships: "Virginia flirted with Clive, her sister's husband; Angelica, Vanessa and Duncan's daughter, married Bunny Garnett, Duncan's former lover; Virginia said that she would seduce Angelica...; Bunny teased that he would seduce Quentin [Vanessa's son]." The weakest sections of the book, it must be said, are those that subject Woolf's juvenilia and diaries to speculative psychoanalysis. "I believe that we are seeing Virginia use that process which psychoanalysts refer to as "reversal of the opposite." "I believe that Virginia is communicating something of great significance here...." (DeSalvo's repetition of the phrase "I believe," while honest in alerting the reader to the speculative nature of her statements, is unnecessary and ultimately cloying.) The irony here is that Woolf's adolescent writings are both revealing and fascinating on their own, without placing them on the couch. Fortunately, DeSalvo's interpretations of Woolf's adult writing are more grounded and informative. Examined are "The Voyage Out," "Jacob's Room," "To the Lighthouse," "The Waves," "The Years," "Between the Acts," as well as selections from her nonfiction. Not only does DeSalvo's commentary shed new light on nove

beware of the reader who gave this one star. his/her strongly negative reaction to this book is so powerful and illogical that it probably indicates one of three things. 1) he/she was sexually abused and either has repressed these memories or is in denial about the experience; either the fact that it happened or that it had any effect on his/her life. therefore, he/she is hostile to the suggestion that sexual abuse is traumatic and has damaging repercussions. (i know this personally, because, as a surviror myself, i used to do the same thing. before i had come to terms with my past, a friend of mine tried to talk to me about her own experiences of sexual abuse. it was so painful for me to here, that i repressed this pain to my unconscious, and on a conscious level, i convinced myself that she was either lying or exagerating her pain. i even got angry at her for bringing it up and told her not to talk to me about it again.) 2. he/she had abused one or more children in the past, and/or is currently abusing one or more children. (abusers usually like to stay in denial that abuse is damaging to the children, and to convince themselves that the children even enjoy it. this book would force him/her to face the ugly truth of the damage he/she is doing. no wonder he/she has such bad things to say about this book!) 3. he/she has children who were, or are currently being abused by someone (probably her boyfriend or husband or something like that, or perhaps his/her father) and he/she wants to stay in denial that this is damaging to his/her children. that way, he/she can avoid confronting the abuser, and can justify to himself/herself why he/she goes on allowing the abuser to do this. the fact is that this is an excellent book. well researched, thorough, informative, enlightening, academic and yet easy to read. i can understand people having mixed feelings about this book, and giving a rating of perhaps three stars. but anyone who gives one star is obviously making a distorted judgement. obviously this book hit a little to close to home for that reader. something in this book provoked a very deep and powerful emotional reaction which seems to have blotted out their logical reasoning, thus destroying their ability to give this a fair rating.

DeSalvo has given us something ground-breaking, heart-breaking, but above all important, in this book. This book brings so much insight into Woolf, her work, and the time in which she lived (ie V.W. as representative of the experience of other children of the time) and does it all in 305 immensely readable pages. This is that kind of fantasy bridge book that allows true readers insight into an author without first having to go and study critical theory for ten years to even get through most books about great authors! I am an avid, organic, non-academic reader and this book was excellent for me. I think it also rescues and gives Virginia Woolf to all of us, as a writer, a woman, a child, a victim of circumstance. As opposed to mad, she was one incredible artist who adapted extremely well in such an isolated and shaming time. DeSalvo you should be honored (as you were, by Kennedy Fraser's New Yorker review, which led me to you!)